2 weeks in, and loving it so far.

[Mokoi]

OK, so I started playing EVE, and I have some questions specifically related to boxing, as well as maybe some tips on how to be successful outside of solo things.

Fleet setup

So, I have 10 ships right now, and my current goal is to get enough money to support them with ISK alone, and never rely on PLEX.

To do this, I have talked with some friends I have made and my Alliance I have joined as to what a good fleet setup would be for a player new to the game, but with 10 ships.

Sentry Drones. Basically, this involves one main ship that runs around painting things from ~50-100km and the 9 alts all drop their sentry drones, and assist the main, which puts out a godly amount of DPS from over 100k, and by the time anything gets in range, its pretty much dead (anomalies and asteroid belt rats anyway) The alts would all have remote shield reps on them for spider tanking with the main, or for repairing the odd drone / alt when needed.

I feel like this is a solid setup for a lot of things, but it will be pretty useless in others. I don't want to give my opinions yet on this since I am less than 2 weeks trained, with less than 1 million skill points, and I know im probably wrong on many things, so I wanted to get some of YOUR opinions for those who have 5+ accounts with some great ideas on how to run them.

Here are some of my questions:

1. Is it better to have a more flexible setup with more traditional ships rather than a pretty specific "drone alt" setup?

2. Will this setup work in PvP.. at all?

3. Would it be better to run a Logi main and let the alts do the tanking with no remote shield reps on them, but instead local shield or armor repair as well as the remote on the logi main?

4. Are 10x stealth bombers or other covert-ops style ships going to be more successful or interesting for multiboxing? if so what should I do for the 6 months it takes to train something like that lol

Any other advice you can give me on the current or new state of the game (with the new xpac only a couple of weeks away)?

[EaTCarbS]

1. Is it better to have a more flexible setup with more traditional ships rather than a pretty specific "drone alt" setup?
Yes, but you have to start somewhere, and more flexibility costs more time.


2. Will this setup work in PvP.. at all?
You'll have to rely on more than sentry drones if you're taking ships into pvp. multiboxing in pvp is about 100 times harder and more complicated.


3. Would it be better to run a Logi main and let the alts do the tanking with no remote shield reps on them, but instead local shield or armor repair as well as the remote on the logi main?
In my experience, you won't need dedicated logi unless you're running incursions. A decent local tank will be just fine, especially because the rats will switch targets (which means you'd need less tank than someone running them solo) and you'll be gunning them down fast enough.


4. Are 10x stealth bombers or other covert-ops style ships going to be more successful or interesting for multiboxing? if so what should I do for the 6 months it takes to train something like that lol
I don't run bombers myself, but it sounds like it would be a bit of fun. A black-ops fleet is one of my goals, and I always love running a cheap frig blob. Magical Merlin Mayhem squad.


Any other advice you can give me on the current or new state of the game (with the new xpac only a couple of weeks away)?
give me yer isk and get double in return.

[Mokoi]

What is an effective setup for PvP? it seems like you could bring 10 carriers and still get stomped because it just makes you a huge target..

What do people do for multiboxing PvP, and where do they go? it seems like faction warfare would be good, except I am in a corp, and I am unable to leave for it... Where should I go to find PvP which isn't 1923495023062 on 1?

[Mosg2]

I'm currently in research mode on this topic, Mokoi.

Right now I'm leaning towards 10x Dominix with sentry drones. You've got ungodly range and alpha strike (~90km), are virtually immune to ewar and the Dominix is a great tank if you fit out properly.

I'm also looking into a stealth fleet to see if it would work.

[Mokoi]

Yeah, the Domi is a great ship, but you will be sitting at station for 4 months waiting for that to train up lol. Also, the Ishtar is a better choice, IMO (which may be junk)

And since my wife and I destroyed you at Ticket to Ride, I feel justified in my choice.

[Mosg2]

In EFT it looked like you could reasonably pilot the Domi in a month. Did I do something wrong maybe?

My thought process is that you want to be in T1 Cruisers or T1 Battleships so you can keep your total fitting cost cheaper.

I looked more into any form of a stealth group and it just doesn't look feasible to me :/

It's funny, because in Georgia we always got smoked by another couple's Asian wife :)

[Mokoi]

Yeah, but the problem with the domi is, its so expensive anyway, you might as well get the tech II and be a bit faster, safer and more powerful. I have a 1 month training fit for the Vexor Navy issue and hurricane tackle / pointer. Thats with some tech II but still a mix.

[Mosg2]

I'm trying to think of ways to post on the Eve forums about what people think an "optimal" 10 or 15 man fleet would be and why. It seems like you want a radically different setup for doing incursions for ISK and pvp. I mean, you kind of need a tank and some remote reps to do Incursions, right?

[Mokoi]

I think for incursions, any ship larger than a carrier can serve as your tank, and a couple of Logi ships will be more than enough for healing. But maybe those who have done them can chime in

[EaTCarbS]

A new character can train and reasonably fly a domi with two months training (only 4 days just to sit in it)

[pinotnoir]

Carbs and I are in a null sec corp that multiboxes. Carbs started his toons off for pve/pvp combat then to mining. I did the opposite. I went straight mining now I am getting to the point to train combat on all my characters. We are in an alliance that has several fleet doctrines and fits. My goal is to get all my combat characters able to fly the fleet doctrine ships. I found going mining first really saves real money. I can make enough isk to plex all my accounts each month. I have 11 accounts now and that would cost quite a bit of real money to do. You can run missions or rat for isk but you need to get your characters up to speed for it. Everything in eve training takes awhile. The game is massive and nothing is fast. Honestly, you should join us in our mulitboxing alliance. It will make the game much easier to learn being with other boxers. Since I switched from WOW I have been really happy with the game. It's so complex there is always something on the horizon I am shooting for.

[CDNProdigy]

I've always have been interested in this game and never really sat down to give it a good go. As a newer person in Eve it would you recommend one account and then move into multiboxing Eve?

[Mosg2]

Starting 10 characters out from scratch, how many hours the first month would it take mining (training solely for mining) to plex your accounts, roughly?

[Mokoi]

Now see I was told that ratting in nullsec was a lot quicker to make money, and I am able to do that within 2 weeks of play with 10 accounts.

[pinotnoir]

If you are mining in hisec don't even waste your time. If you are in a corp in null then it's well worth it. I would recommend you download evemon and create a training schedule. You can get into a mining barge retriever in a matter of days. From there on you would keep training towards exhumers. You can rat in null but you need to have some tanking and weapon skills. Just cause you have 10 accounts doesn't mean you can kill the rats. Remember everything takes time to train into. In addition to the ships you need the support skills to fly them with proficiency. I have a default mining character train in evemon I can send you. You can modify it however you wish but it will give you an idea of the skills needed. Don't forget if you are going to mine in null, one character needs to be overwatch for rats and one needs to work towards buffing your miners. Eventually one will be a hauler but for now you can have 8 mining 1 overwatch and 1 buffing. You would mine with 9 until your buffer can fly an orca to buff your group.

[Mokoi]

Right now im waiting on delivery of 10 ruptures. My main has a bunch of t2 fits and the alts are all t1. I shouldnt have too many issues doing asteroid rats.. and as i get better moving up. What kind of isk/hr is mining in null worth? On lowbie miners a week or so of training?

[pinotnoir]

It depends how much you play and if your alliance or corp has an ore buy back program. With my corp buy back for ore I can mine a lot of ore with mackinaws and 5 retrievers. The most I mined was a week ago for around 4b isk. I try to average at least 2b a week. If you play a lot and don't have neuts bothering you then isk flows fast. If you are camped then you are screwed. What you make depends much on where you live. The alliance and corp you join determines how much you will make. Lucky for me my corp CEO is a boxer and has logistics to buy our ore. You may not be so lucky. In null the grav site rats will kill your miners. You need an overwatch to protect the fleet. I use a domi but would prefer something better. It gets the job done because my mack pilots have decent drone skills to help kill the rats.

[Kicksome]

Hey Pino, I didn't even realize you were playing eve.

I played back in 2009 for a while. I remember going to nul sec and just getting wasted, so I setup a mining fleet and did missions, setup a base or something as well.

I think I have 7 accounts that I could reactivate. I know I had at least one orca, all my guys were decently trained and I made enough to buy some characters via their forums that were pretty bad-ass.

Is it hard to get into your corp? I never tried to get into a nul sec corp when I played before, it seemed so risky.

[Kicksome]

So I reactivated an account. It looks like I have 4 bil ISK, 10 mil skill points and a hulk on one of my guys. I'm not sure about the other accounts.

[pinotnoir]

My corp has several multiboxers. If you are interested in coming back I can ask my CEO about recruiting. I know we have been adding new players recently. I quit wow after the /follow removal. I really really miss our old days playing wow. It was the most fun I had in wow. Nul is very risky. But you make much more. One good thing is you know a neut who enters your system is there to kill you. So with good intel from the alliance and constant eye on local you can safe up to avoid them.

[Mosg2]

I'm interested also, Pinot. Ill let you know when I get my stuff turned on.

[EaTCarbS]

Is it hard to get into your corp? I never tried to get into a nul sec corp when I played before, it seemed so risky.

Nullsec is safer in my opinion - there are less people around, and you know the people that aren't on your team are there to shoot you. In hisec, you have a local list full of people you don't know, and can't fully identifiy their intentions until they act.

The only downside to null is you have to defend your space from those that wish to take it.

[Mokoi]

Nullsec is awesome. Its calm and quiet and then suddenly one ship thats unknown jumps in and the whole corp loses their mind jumping to safe spots or docking to chase them down lol

[tatanka7th]

OK, so I started playing EVE, and I have some questions specifically related to boxing, as well as maybe some tips on how to be successful outside of solo things.

Fleet setup

So, I have 10 ships right now, and my current goal is to get enough money to support them with ISK alone, and never rely on PLEX.

Hey guys, I just started last week, and so far I love the game. Though I have boxed EQ and EQ2 (and I guess WOW) before, I'm just 1-boxing Eve for now. However, I have a question based on this comment, which I don't understand.... I thought the goal was to buy PLEX with ISK, in-game, from other players. And if you're just spending cash to pay for play, subs are a better deal than PLEX. But I'm not sure I know what the OP means here by "Never rely on PLEX". Please enlighten me.

Thanks,

Tat

[Mokoi]

I want to buy the plex with ISK (in-game currency) and not with RL money.

[pinotnoir]

Today we took a fleet to a massive war with 1800 people. The server was so bogged down everything was in slow motion. It was pretty nuts. I have never seen pvp on that scale.